


The Destiny of Free Will

by redd093



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Fiction, Gen, General fiction, Literature, Short Stories, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:38:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1464568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redd093/pseuds/redd093





	The Destiny of Free Will

"The day that They picked me was the day that the King rode through my village. I was only four years old at the time. When we were ordered to stand by the side of the road and bow as the King and his men rode on their horses by, I heard Father tell Mother that it was insanity. He told Mother the story of how the King came to power. 

He was chosen by the Gods to rule the land, and they also chose thirty of the mightiest soldiers to be his army. On their way to destroy King Rane, who was the previous ruler of the land, the King killed eighteen of his own men, declaring they were not worthy. After that, the Gods revealed one of the King's men to be a God in human form. When word spread through the remaining eleven soldiers, six of them left, and were marked as traitors. When the King finally arrived at Rane's palace, he and his six soldiers took on Rane's entire militia and won. 

Father also told Mother that he intended to stand in defiance of the King when he was ordered to bow, although I never heard him say why. So I had no idea why the King channeled the Gods through his body and struck down Father with lightning that flew from his hand. The King saw me standing as well and tried to strike me, but that was when They took over my body. They gave me the power to block the lightning with my bare hands. In a flurry, someone dragged me away as a crowd fought against the King and blocked his path so that I could escape. 

After years of living with the man who dragged me away, and no sign of Them other than the scorch marks on my hands that never seemed to heal, the man revealed himself to be Father's friend, and one of the six traitor soldiers that left the King. More specifically, he was the Alchemist. He could take ordinary items and pieces of earth and shape them into wondrous new forms. He then told me the second half of the King's story. When the Gods chose the King, they did not choose him in the way everyone thought. Instead, they took control of his body and forced him to perform their actions. He knew this because one night on their way to Rane's palace, the King woke up a few of his soldiers with his cries of agony. Through his tears, he revealed to the wakened men that the Gods were forcing them to kill Rane because Rane wanted to unite the entire world and bring peace, and that the Gods possessing the King were evil Gods who wanted the world to remain chaotic. That was the real reason why the six traitor soldiers left the King's side. Besides him, there was the Archer, the Mage, the Swordsman, the Thief and the Spy, all of their names never revealed, not even to each other. 

The Alchemist told me stories he had heard of the real Gods being banished from Heaven and taken to hiding amongst us mortals. He was unsure if the real Gods were the reason behind my sudden power, but he told me that any force against the King was a force of good. A few years after the traitor soldier's revelation, They came back to me. They filled my mind with images of the King, slaughtering men while crying in agony. They also showed me images of a faceless man striking down a wounded King. I knew that was why They chose me, so that I could kill the King. I also knew that They were a 'They' and not an 'It', because when They showed me images, voices swirled in my head and caused me a great deal of pain, much like the pain the King described to his soldiers. They did not control my body in the way that the Gods controlled the King though. Instead, They merely showed me what They wanted me to do, and allowed me to perform the actions on my own. 

By the time I was seventeen, I had taken off around the land to train. I had already accepted the destiny that They chose for me, even though I still wasn't too happy about it. I discovered that I could call upon Them for a short period of time in order to use on of Their powers, but I began doing so sparingly, for each time it brought me immense pain. I trained with the best swordsmen, fighters, archers, hunters and mercenaries, all men and women who heard the story of the Gods and the King and wanted to right this wrong. It all seemed to fly by, and when I was twenty, I decided I was ready to kill the King. They told me that I needed more time, but I was young and determined. And it only took one of the King's soldiers to kill me. 

When I woke up, I was in a new body. I had a new family. I had a new name. And everything looked different through my new eyes. But I still had my old memories. I panicked. I enticed Their power and killed my new family, and in the wreckage of the house, They came to me again. They told me how they placed my soul in another's body, for They were not yet done with me. I still had a destiny to fulfill. But this time, They told me that I would do it with the help of the six traitor soldiers. 

So I made my way back to my old home, training again along the way. My new body was stronger than my old one, ready to learn and absorb the knowledge of how to fight. And although my new muscles did not know how to hold a sword or shoot an arrow, my soul still remembered, and my muscles learned much faster than I could have hoped. 

When I found the man Alchemist, he did not need much convincing that I was who I said I was. With his help, I tracked down the remaining five traitor soldiers. We found the Thief and the Swordsman without too many problems. The Mage refused to come along at first, and the Spy's location was unknown to anyone. In fact, we merely ran into him out of pure luck. One night around a fire, we went around and told our stories. The Alchemist told us of how he came to his home village, my village. He settled down, had a family, and became friends with my old father. The Swordsman found a small city and opened a school for swordsmanship. The Thief won a small shop in a game of chance and was actually living within the law. The Mage had started living in the mountains and refused to be part of the world anymore. Instead, he wanted to remain a recluse. The only reason he agreed to come along is because the Alchemist told him my story, and how They might be the real Gods. The Spy adopted a role by the King himself in order to keep an eye on him, and was actually off to visit the Alchemist when we found him. But when I asked about the Archer, the fire was the only audible sound for a few moments. After a while, the Alchemist agreed to tell me the story. 

Before the King was chosen by the Gods, the King and the Archer were lovers. That was why when the King was chosen, the Archer gladly came along. Even before the King killed the eighteen unworthy soldiers, the Archer noticed that the King had become a different person entirely. When the King revealed the story of the Gods controlling him, he told the Archer specifically that he wanted to die. To be controlled by the Gods was sheer hell, but the Gods wouldn't let him die. In a total act of love and devotion, the Archer tried to strike down the King, but the Gods shot lightning through the King's hands and marked the Archer's face. That was the night the six traitor soldiers left the King's side.  
And finally, we have tracked the Archer down."

 

An elderly woman with long black hair stared at the boy in front of her. "You expect a woman of my age to join your quest, boy?"

A boy of about nineteen, surrounded by five men stood before her. "I expect a woman of your skill to join my quest, ma'am."

The woman laughed, her hair bouncing and revealing deep scars on the right side of her face. "My, what a charmer. And why would I help you?"

The boy's face remained calm. "So you can keep the promise you made to your lover, the King."

The Archer's face, however, hardened. "Who told you about my promise? I didn't even tell the other soldiers about that."

"They told me, ma'am." The five men around the boy looked at each other in confusion. "You see, They told me how before you left, you promised to come back and save the King from the Gods."

The Archer looked away and nodded. "At least I know you're telling the truth about those voices you hear." She then looked at him with sharp eyes. "But did they tell you the words the King carved into his own arm as his last act of defiance against the Gods?"

The boy thought for a moment, then his face contorted in agony, and in hundreds of different voices, They spoke through him. "ThE aGe Of ChAoS iS oVeR. nO mOrE gOdS. nO mOrE kInGs. OnLy MaN."


End file.
